The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the Quantum Genesis Q Competition on September 17, 2026, with up to $215 million in planned funding for companies that demonstrate fault-tolerant quantum computers. DOE invited proposals to deploy machines with at least 100 logical qubits, along with scientific demonstration programs.
A logical qubit is an error-protected unit of quantum information spread across many physical qubits, the individual qubits in the hardware. Fault-tolerant computers use such error correction to keep long calculations running despite faulty components.
DOE plans to pay $200 million of the total only to companies that reach its first-generation goal, which it defines as at least 100 logical qubits. DOE said $2.5 million of the planned funding is fiscal 2026 money and that funding for later years is contingent on congressional appropriations.
Payments and pools
In the competition’s request for applications, DOE wrote that it anticipates making awards only through other transaction agreements. These agreements are exempt from many of the standard federal rules for procurement contracts and grants.
In the first phase, each selected company will draw up a technical plan for assessing its milestones with a DOE-designated verification and validation team. DOE will pay $250,000 when it approves the plan and another $1.25 million for a validated prototype, according to the request. In its announcement, DOE put the first-phase total at up to $1.5 million per company. The department expects the prototypes no later than one year after the program starts.
In the second phase, DOE will split a $100 million general pool evenly among all awardees that demonstrate a first-generation machine, after a final evaluation it anticipates in September 2028. DOE wrote that it will also split two bonus pools of $50 million each evenly among awardees that reach 150 or more and 200 or more total logical qubits, if any do.
Technical targets
DOE calls the machines it wants scientifically relevant quantum computers. It set its targets in logical qubits and in hard operations. The department defined a hard operation as one that is difficult in a company’s error-correction scheme but necessary for universal quantum computation, the ability to run any quantum algorithm.
In the request, DOE wrote of thousands of hard operations for a first-generation machine in the text and listed 100,000 in a table of illustrative targets. In its announcement, DOE described machines capable of hundreds of millions of fault-tolerant operations, without specifying how many would be hard operations. For architectures not naturally measured in logical qubits, DOE wrote that it will identify equivalent technical metrics during negotiation.
In the same table, DOE listed 10 logical qubits and 1,000 hard operations for a prototype. For a next-generation machine, it listed 1,000 logical qubits and 10 million hard operations. The department wrote that it views these metrics as illustrative and that milestones for a particular company’s technology may vary.
DOE also wrote that a first-generation machine will be capable of a full demonstration of a scientific workflow, although not necessarily at scales beyond the reach of classical computers. DOE set no requirement for a particular qubit technology. It wrote, however, that it does not intend to fund multiple applicants that rely on substantively similar qubit technologies from a single provider.
Validation testbed
DOE issued a separate lab call asking its national laboratories to propose a Quantum High Performance Computing Validation and Verification Testbed. DOE said that through the testbed, the laboratories would characterize and validate each layer of a quantum computer, from hardware and gates to algorithms and classical control systems.
In its announcement, DOE said it plans $45 million for the testbed, including $14 million in fiscal 2026, with later funding subject to appropriations. Under the lab call, letters of intent are due September 30 and proposals are due November 10.
Eligibility and schedule
Applicants must be for-profit domestic entities. A foreign company would need an explicit written waiver from DOE. Applications are due October 19, after an informational webinar that DOE scheduled for September 25.
DOE expects to announce initial selections no earlier than November 13 and anticipates choosing at least three and up to 10 applications. It wrote that it may select all, some, or none.
DOE wrote that its goal is a first-generation machine by 2028 but that it will consider applicants that propose to reach that point no later than 2030. Applicants with longer timelines accept the risk that other companies will claim the available milestone payments before those applicants reach their own milestones, DOE wrote. After selection, the next dated milestones are prototypes within a year and the final evaluation in September 2028.
Executive order and Quantum Genesis
The competition is one of three parts of Quantum Genesis, an initiative DOE announced on June 23 to develop and deploy a fault-tolerant, scientifically relevant quantum computing capability for research and development by 2028. The other two are a national quantum supercomputing user facility and research on quantum computing applications.
DOE announced the initiative one day after President Trump signed Executive Order 14413, “Ushering in the Next Frontier of Quantum Innovation.” In the order, Trump set up an effort to pursue development of a quantum computer for scientific discovery, with the intent to deliver at least one to a DOE facility.
Update, November 14, 2026: Applications closed on October 19. DOE had named no selections by November 13, the earliest date it had given for doing so, as Quantum Observer reported.
